How We Let People Go

There is a specific feeling which exists only when you run into someone you had long forgotten about. It’s probably most palpable when it’s an ex, but it can happen with friends who were once particularly close. It is comparable to a scab that seems to have been on your skin forever — a scrape which was once quite painful but has been so long in the healing process that you no longer notice its presence when you wash over it in the shower. You peel it off almost out of boredom and suddenly there is a drop or two of blood, something that vaguely resembles the wound it once was, now too distant to really cause any discomfort. These people are wounds which have healed over, which have never quite turned into scars but which have become just another part of your lived-in body.